Dr. Stephen Glicksman, the developmental psychologist for Women’s League Community Residences pointed out to me the irony of the process that drives people to do something good because of the importance of doing chesed – as opposed to doing almost the exact same good thing not because it’s nice, but because it’s right.
This concept was powerfully summed up in a speech given a few months ago at The National Synagogue in Washington by Shelley Cohen, the mother of Nathaniel Cohen, who passed away last year after 21 years of life with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Shelley, whose son Jonathan is an active Yachad coordinator, expressed how she spent most of her “career” as a parent “fighting this natural inclination of dealing with the disabled as a form of chesed, among the best intentioned people. It is a position that essentially objectifies disabled individuals, making them into utilitarian objects that are here not for their own essence, but as a benefit to others.”
“The physically and developmentally disabled,” she elaborated, “play a vital role within the Jewish community and within greater society of being among the finest teachers. The role of the disabled in our community is not as an object of chesed but rather as chiyuv, a Torah-required obligation, [allowing us] to gain a greater understanding of tzelem Elokim – the Divine Likeness of all of mankind to God – and of the need to be open to the fact that we relate to God and to each other not as perfect human beings but as imperfect people who can all learn from each other.”
The season for Yad B’Yad is upon us. We look forward to another incredible summer. An inclusive summer. And we hope we can follow our own model beyond the summer by taking the niceness out of righteousness and putting the “right” back in.